The hybrid cloud uses a combination of two or more clouds (private and public) to store and run your business data and services. While these clouds exist as separate entities, they interact with each other to provide businesses with a range of combined benefits.
How it works
- Dedicated servers for performance and reliability
- Private cloud for ultimate control
- Public cloud for scalability, ideal for heavy or unpredictable traffic
A hybrid cloud configuration offers businesses the following benefits:
Improved scalability
The hybrid cloud provides your business with on-demand availability; as and when you need it. And by leveraging the public cloud in times of heavy usage – and running workloads where they perform best – your business will benefit from enhanced organisational agility; quickly and easily.
Maximised uptime
By removing some of the pressure from your private cloud, you’re less likely to experience outages. So you can ensure uptime of your critical services and workloads with an easy one-click failover strategy.
Better disaster recovery process
Many companies, especially SMEs, are leveraging cloud services for DR. And the benefits are clear: by using the cloud for applications that are idle most of the time, you’ll reduce the pressure on your IT infrastructure and data centre space. With no hardware investment required you simply pay for what you need and go.
Increased security
While many businesses prefer to keep their sensitive data onsite, data held in the cloud is actually less susceptible to attack.
“Most of the major data breaches that have taken place over the last five years, from Sony to Ashley Madison, TalkTalk to Target, have been from internal, not cloud-based, databases”.
Amichai Shulman, chief technology officer of cybersecurity firm, Imperva
It’s simply a myth that cloud computing is less secure than traditional approaches. Although, depending on your industry, there are regulatory requirements that could prohibit data from being stored off-site.
But you don’t have to take our word for it that the cloud is safe; financial stalwarts such as JPMorgan Chase & Co, Goldman Sachs Group Inc, Capital One Financial Corp, and Liberty Mutual Insurance Co are all already using shared cloud services.
Cost savings
One of the key reasons businesses adopt a hybrid cloud approach it to make financial savings. There’s simply no point upgrading the infrastructure of your costly private cloud if you don’t need it all of the time.
Instead, IT managers seeking to invest in valuable IT solutions are better off leveraging the power of business-class managed public cloud options. So you only pay for what you need, when you need it. For example, with a managed solution from Genisys, you get access to intelligent cloud storage, while paying up to 90% less than an on-site solution*.
Improved access to information
The UK is in the midst of a mobile working revolution. With anytime, anywhere retrieval of information not only desirable, but business critical. The cloud provides employees with 24/7 access to all the information they need to do their jobs.
Better organisational efficiency
By using the cloud and saving money, resources can be allocated to business critical projects that are essential for growth.
However, the hybrid cloud doesn’t come without challenges.
The challenges of the hybrid cloud
- Network connectivity can cause problems for business who want to adopt a hybrid cloud solution. Bandwidth, reliability, and latency must all be taken into account. A logical network topology must also be designed.
- Compatibility across infrastructure must also be addressed.
- A lack of skills. Not everyone can create and manage a hybrid cloud solution. As such, it’s better to find a trusted partner who can manage this for you.
- Costs. While the cloud is cost-effective, it can be difficult to find the necessary funds to execute a hybrid strategy. However, with technology asset finance, your business can move from on-premise to hybrid cloud while ensuring total control of expenditure
For many businesses, the hybrid cloud offers the best of both worlds, mixing and matching resources, with infrastructure that’s both scalable, and provisioned on demand.
*With NetApp® AltaVault®
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